California
Business & Economics
Analyze This: Unelected Regulatory Zealots Don’t Need More Power
California’s Legislative Analyst (LAO) is a nonpartisan body “providing fiscal and policy advice to the Legislature for more than 70 years,” according to its website. Some of its recent advice is seriously misguided, such as a proposal to expand the power of an unelected body, headed by regulatory zealots, that ...
Commentary
Pro & Con: Should states block formation of health insurance exchanges?
In January, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled in favor of Georgia and 25 other states that the federal health reform law was unconstitutional. Last December, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson made a similar decision in a lawsuit brought by Virginia. The elected branches also are doing their part to ...
Business & Economics
The Fed needs to free the market
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission issued its finding that the devastating economic events of the past few years were “preventable.” The FCIC heaped the blame on many parties, but drew the wrong conclusion when it faulted the government and Federal Reserve for lax oversight. On the ...
Business & Economics
Cities go on wild spending sprees
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown has been caught flat-footed in his plan to shutter the state’s redevelopment agencies as cities across California continue to squander their redevelopment cash, tying up hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term spending on half-baked projects simply to keep the money away from the state. ...
Business & Economics
Redevelopment is Redistribution
Nine of Californias big-city mayors met recently with Gov. Jerry Brown in an attempt to talk him out of eliminating redevelopment agencies (RDAs) as part of his budget-balancing proposal. The mayors support keeping RDAs intact because they believe it is through redevelopment that cities create jobs. Without redevelopment agencies, several ...
Business & Economics
Californians need to suffer more
People increasingly want answers for how California can solve its fiscal problems, but I rarely have good news to offer. Last week, I wrote about three Assembly Republicans who attended a “no more cuts” rally sponsored by the Service Employees International Union – those always-agitated, purple-shirted, bullhorn-toting activists who are ...
Business & Economics
Balancing California’s unwieldy budget
Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State speech Monday night was pretty much what anyone should have expected, as the new governor championed his “tough choices” budget and pushed hard for its centerpiece: a public vote on controversial tax extensions. Since his inauguration, Brown has made it clear that he ...
California
A School Choice Week lesson for Gov. Brown
Gov. Jerry Brown eliminated the office of the state secretary of education, but aside from that symbolic and inconsequential act, his proposed education budget for 2011-12 contains no real reform ideas. California’s new chief executive should use National School Choice Week, the last week in January, to consider innovative ways ...
Education
NEW BOOK! Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing the Online Learning Revolution in California
Government red tape and inertia, plus union opposition, have prevented widespread student access to K-12 online learning according to the new book Short-Circuited San Francisco—Government red tape and inertia, plus union opposition, have prevented widespread student access to K-12 online learning according to the new book Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing ...
Business & Economics
Is Brown dodging pension reform?
At a League of California Cities event in Sacramento, Gov. Jerry Brown promised local officials struggling under the weight of pay and benefit costs that he would, indeed, put forward pension-reform proposals in the coming weeks. Yet I see little evidence so far that the new governor is interested in ...
Analyze This: Unelected Regulatory Zealots Don’t Need More Power
California’s Legislative Analyst (LAO) is a nonpartisan body “providing fiscal and policy advice to the Legislature for more than 70 years,” according to its website. Some of its recent advice is seriously misguided, such as a proposal to expand the power of an unelected body, headed by regulatory zealots, that ...
Pro & Con: Should states block formation of health insurance exchanges?
In January, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled in favor of Georgia and 25 other states that the federal health reform law was unconstitutional. Last December, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson made a similar decision in a lawsuit brought by Virginia. The elected branches also are doing their part to ...
The Fed needs to free the market
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission issued its finding that the devastating economic events of the past few years were “preventable.” The FCIC heaped the blame on many parties, but drew the wrong conclusion when it faulted the government and Federal Reserve for lax oversight. On the ...
Cities go on wild spending sprees
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown has been caught flat-footed in his plan to shutter the state’s redevelopment agencies as cities across California continue to squander their redevelopment cash, tying up hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term spending on half-baked projects simply to keep the money away from the state. ...
Redevelopment is Redistribution
Nine of Californias big-city mayors met recently with Gov. Jerry Brown in an attempt to talk him out of eliminating redevelopment agencies (RDAs) as part of his budget-balancing proposal. The mayors support keeping RDAs intact because they believe it is through redevelopment that cities create jobs. Without redevelopment agencies, several ...
Californians need to suffer more
People increasingly want answers for how California can solve its fiscal problems, but I rarely have good news to offer. Last week, I wrote about three Assembly Republicans who attended a “no more cuts” rally sponsored by the Service Employees International Union – those always-agitated, purple-shirted, bullhorn-toting activists who are ...
Balancing California’s unwieldy budget
Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State speech Monday night was pretty much what anyone should have expected, as the new governor championed his “tough choices” budget and pushed hard for its centerpiece: a public vote on controversial tax extensions. Since his inauguration, Brown has made it clear that he ...
A School Choice Week lesson for Gov. Brown
Gov. Jerry Brown eliminated the office of the state secretary of education, but aside from that symbolic and inconsequential act, his proposed education budget for 2011-12 contains no real reform ideas. California’s new chief executive should use National School Choice Week, the last week in January, to consider innovative ways ...
NEW BOOK! Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing the Online Learning Revolution in California
Government red tape and inertia, plus union opposition, have prevented widespread student access to K-12 online learning according to the new book Short-Circuited San Francisco—Government red tape and inertia, plus union opposition, have prevented widespread student access to K-12 online learning according to the new book Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing ...
Is Brown dodging pension reform?
At a League of California Cities event in Sacramento, Gov. Jerry Brown promised local officials struggling under the weight of pay and benefit costs that he would, indeed, put forward pension-reform proposals in the coming weeks. Yet I see little evidence so far that the new governor is interested in ...
